Sommersby: Twenty Years Later
by autumnrose2010
Summary: The lives of Laurel, Robert, and Rachel Sommersby in 1887, twenty years after the loss of their husband and father Jack. I just thought that this beautiful and touching movie deserved a sequel. Please read and review.
1. Memories of Yesterday

_Author's note: In the movie 'Sommersby', Horace Townsend assumes the identity of Jack Sommersby after the latter's death and is subsequently executed for a murder committed by the real Jack Sommersby many years previously. He leaves behind a widow, Laurel, and two children, Robert (the biological child of the real Jack Sommersby and Laurel) and Rachel (the biological child of Horace and Laurel). Jack and Horace were both Confederate soldiers who met while in prison for deserting the Confederate army. Horace was from Virginia, and Jack was from Vine Hill, Tennessee, where Laurel and Robert still resided at the end of the Civil War)._

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_"Mama, did my daddy really kill that man?" Rachel was about six years old when she asked the inevitable question. Laurel had known that it would come some day and had an answer prepared.

"No, honey. There were some bad men who made it look like your daddy had killed someone because they wanted to get him into trouble. They were able to fool the judge into thinking that he had done it."

"Why couldn't my daddy have just told the judge that he didn't do it?"

"Well, sweetie, there were quite a few of them and only one of your daddy. That's why the judge believed them instead of him."

"That's not fair!" Rachel cried.

Her mother gave her a hug. "I know it isn't, love. But just remember that your daddy is up in heaven now. He sees everything you do and he is so proud of you when you do the right thing. He loves you so very much, Rachel. The day you were born he was so happy he danced in the field and didn't care who saw him. And even though he's up in heaven now he still loves you very much. It makes him so happy when something good happens to you and when you feel sad he is crying right along with you."

"Did it hurt my daddy when they put that rope around his neck?" Rachel's bottom lip was quivering.

"No honey, it happened very quickly and he didn't feel a thing."

"I wonder what the very last thing he ever saw was."

"The very last thing he ever saw was me saying good-bye to him, sweetie."

Rachel often walked up the hill and sat looking at the tombstone. "John Robert Sommersby 1831-1867. Beloved husband and father. Citizen of Vine Hill". Her mother made sure that the ground around it was always kept meticulously clean, and in the summer flowers grew there and birds sang. It was a quiet and peaceful place to come to when she needed to be alone. Often she wondered how different her life would have been if her father had lived. Most of her friends at school still had their fathers, and they did things like take them fishing and come to school on special days like Christmas programs. Every year on father's day her friends made special cards or gifts for their fathers. Rachel always brought a big bouquet of flowers to leave beside the tombstone that day. Usually she stayed for a short visit as well. Sometimes she talked to him, asking him what it was like in heaven, whether people really sat on clouds and played harps. The day she won the spelling bee at school right after she told her mother about it and showed her her ribbon she had won she came to tell him too. And the day Obadiah Walker pushed her down and she skinned her knee she told him about that too. She asked him if he had ever known any mean people like that himself. Sometimes she wondered whether he could really hear her. She didn't think that there was any harm in believing that maybe he could.

When she was a few years older she started bringing her father's well-worn copy of The Ilead with her when she came to sit by his grave. She had stolen it from Robert's suitcase the night before he moved away, carefully replacing all the other items in the suitcase exactly as they had been so that Robert would notice nothing amiss until it was too late. She believed that her father would have wanted his book to stay here in Tennessee where he was rather than go up north with Robert. She spent hours reading to him from it. She felt especially close to him when she did that, almost as if he were sitting right beside her listening to every word. She supposed that Robert must have felt that way too when he had read to Robert when Robert was a little boy.

Another childhood memory that Rachel would always carry with her was that of Louisa Perkins, a girl she had gone to school with who had had no father. Rachel knew that of course there had had to have been a father at some point, but Louisa's mother had had no husband at the time Louisa was born. Rachel remembered how the other students had laughed at Louisa and called her a bastard. Obviously being a bastard was much worse than being the daughter of a man who had been hung for murder, as the other students had never shown anything but pity for Rachel. Rachel remembered Louisa's head hung low in shame and the tears in her eyes. Those tears tore at Rachel's heart. She herself had always been exceptionally nice to Louisa and had never called her names. She realized that the girl shouldn't be blamed for her parent's mistake and that it could have just as easily been herself rather than Louisa in Louisa's position. The two fatherless girls often ate lunch together, united in their loss although it was for two completely different reasons. One to be pitied and the other to be shamed.

Everyone was always so very nice to Rachel, everyone except one man. His name was Orin Meacham and he was one of her neighbors. He hobbled around on his wooden foot with his face in a scowl most of the time. He seemed to have a special hatred for Rachel, although Rachel couldn't fathom why. She knew that she had never done anything to him. Rachel's mama had told her that she should be mice to Mr. Meacham because Mr. Meacham had helped her a lot on the farm when her daddy had went away for a while and then come back, which had happened before Rachel had been born. Rachel found that hard to believe.

The number of times she had wished that it was Mr. Meacham lying beneath the small white cross instead of her daddy, Rachel couldn't begin to guess. She really tried to put that thought out of her mind. The minister at the church said that it was a sin to think that way, and if he said it then it must be true.


	2. Young Love Blossoms

It was a lazy day in late summer in a small sleepy town in Virginia in 1887. The hottest part of the day was over and the sun was beginning to set. The horses' hooves kicked up the dust as the wheels of the buggy advanced. The driver held the reigns and looked straight ahead. The young girl sitting next to him brushed a strand of hair out of her face and smiled. Her name was Rachel Caroline Sommersby and she had come to town to teach in the small one-room school.

Rachel was pretty, with wavy brown hair and dark brown eyes. This was her very first teaching job and she was excited and scared at the same time. She loved little children but she knew that there were older children as well, and she hoped that she would be able to get the older students to take her seriously.

Caleb Townsend was out for his usual brisk afternoon stroll. He saw the buggy and paused for a minute. He knew that the new schoolteacher was due to arrive that afternoon and he was curious about what she would be like.

As the buggy passed he saw a young black man driving and a young woman sitting next to him. She looked so young that it couldn't have been very long ago that she had been a student herself. Caleb thought that she was the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen. He hoped that their paths would cross really soon.

A few days later Caleb met up with Richard Brewer in the mercantile. "Hello, Caleb," Richard said.

"Hello, Mr. Brewer," said Caleb. "How are Frances and Susannah?"

"Both are fine, as is our newest addition, Rachel," Mr. Brewer said with a smile.

"The new teacher? Is she boarding with you?"

"That's correct. How is your father keeping himself these days?"

"He's doing all right, but I'm not sure he's eating enough these days. He looks like he might be losing weight."

"That house really needs a woman's touch," Richard remarked.

That made Caleb think of Rachel. "I saw Rachel as she was riding into town last Sunday afternoon," Caleb said. "She sure is beautiful."

"Would you like to meet her?"

"Oh yes!"

"I'll see what I can work out." Richard winked at him.

Richard and Frances Brewer invited Caleb and his father George over for dinner a few nights later. Frances made the introductions. "George and Caleb Townsend, this is Rachel Sommersby. She just started teaching at the beginning of this school term."

"How do you do." Rachel smiled and extended her hand. George noticed that she had a very slight, barely noticeable webbing between her third and fourth fingers. With a start he realized that his younger brother Horace had had the exact same thing.

"You have a beautiful name," Caleb said to Rachel.

"Thank you." She blushed slightly. "I was named for my grandmother on my mother's side."

"Come and sit down," Frances invited them. Rachel smiled again and George noticed that she had a dimple in exactly the same spot that Horace's had been. He wondered if he had been getting enough sleep lately and told himself to stop letting his imagination run away with him. It had to be nothing but an incredible coincidence. That's all.

"Isn't the sunset beautiful?" Rachel sighed.

"Absolutely gorgeous," Caleb agreed. "This is the most perfect time of day to take a walk."

Dinner was over and Caleb and Rachel were touring the Brewer's property. The sun was just setting on the horizon and the sky was full of beautiful pinks, purples, and oranges.

"So what made you decide to become a teacher?" Caleb asked.

"When I was a little girl I had two friends named James and Sarah. Their father had been a slave who was owned by my grandfather Sommersby before the war. James and Sarah weren't allowed to go to the school I went to because it was for white people only. There wasn't a school in our town that they could go to. I didn't think that was fair. So when I started school myself, Every afternoon I would visit James and Sarah and teach them everything I had learned that day. It felt really good to know that I was helping them and it was exciting to see them learn."

"Besides that, I felt like my father would have been proud of me for doing that. I knew it was something he would have wanted me to do. For some reason I always felt that my father would have loved for me to be a teacher. He was a tobacco farmer himself, and before that he was a soldier in the Confederate army. So I can't really explain how I know he would have wanted me to be a teacher. It's something I just know."

"How did your father die?" Caleb asked. Rachel said nothing and stared at the ground. Caleb instantly regretted the question.

"Oh Rachel, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have asked such a personal question as that."

"It's all right." She smiled.

"So tell me about the rest of your family."

"There's just me and mother and my older brother Robert. He moved up north to work in a factory. He's married to a Yankee girl and I have a niece and nephew, Julia and William."

"Robert is really the only one I can ask about father because mother always gets so sad when I ask her. I can see her eyes fill up with tears every time I mention him. I just can't bear to see mother that sad."

"I've always felt jealous of Robert because he's old enough to remember our father. He says that father used to read from The Ilead to him, that father always comforted him when he was scared and that father brought him a new puppy after his dog died." Rachel had been very fond of Robert's dog herself and had grieved when the dog died when she was about seven or eight years old.

"It's not fair, I've been doing all the talking so far," Rachel kidded. "Tell me about your own family, Caleb."

"I'm afraid there's not much to tell. It's just father and myself. My mother died of scarlet fever when I was ten years old."

"I"m so sorry to hear that," Rachel said. She couldn't imagine life without a mother.

"Father and I make out all right. He's owned the local newspaper for many years. I've been working as a reporter for him since I finished school several years ago."

"That sound like a fascinating job."

"It's interesting work. I enjoy it."

By now it was almost dark so they turned to head back to the house.

Once again George read the final correspondence he had received from his brother, some time after Horace had been imprisoned for deserting the Confederate army.

Dear George,

First of all I want to let you know how sorry I am for all the anguish and pain I have caused you over the years. If there were any way I could go back and undo my selfish deeds, I would. Please understand that I can no longer be a part of your life. By the time you receive this letter I will have become a different man with a different name. Please do not try to find me. There are others who need me now and I must not let them down.

I hope that it will give you peace to know that in my new life I will do everything I possibly can to atone for the wrong that I have done. I will never forget you or the many kindnesses you have shown me. It is with a heavy heart that I bring you this news but please understand that this is the way things must be from now on. I hate the man that I have become and I will never, ever go back to being him again, not even if my life depends on it.

Horace

George had tried many times to grasp the significance of the puzzling message. It sounded to him as if Horace had completely and finally turned his back on his former life and all the people in it. George hoped that that wasn't the case. Perhaps Horace had taken words said in anger much too puzzled George the most was why Rachel Sommersby had reminded him so much of Horace, other than a few common physical traits which were almost certainly a coincidence. George concluded that he had far too active an imagination.

Late summer became early fall. The leaves changed colors and fell from the trees. Caleb Townsend became a frequent caller at the Brewer's residence. He took Rachel for many long walks and buggy rides. He took her to the restaurant and the theater. Rachel grew to love the tall, broad-shouldered young man with the sparkling blue eyes and easy smile. Caleb knew that he had never met a girl like Rachel. He loved the way her face lit up every time she saw him. The special smile she always gave him just made his heart melt.

By the time the school term ended near Christmas both the young people knew that they were really in love. As Rachel made the preparations for traveling back to her home in Tennessee Caleb's heart ached for the several long weeks he would be without her smile to look forward to every evening. The only thing that helped him to endure it was the knowledge that she was returning to teach the spring term in January. It felt like an eternity to him.

At last the day he had dreaded was upon him. He and Rachel stood on the front porch of the Brewer's with her packed suitcases, waiting for the driver and the horses and buggy to show up.

"You look cold." Caleb tucked a strand of Rachel's hair into her hood.

"Oh, I'm all right," she said bravely, but he could see tears forming in her eyes.

"Are you sure you didn't forget to pack anything?"

"I made double sure. I'll be right back in January anyway."

"Your mother will be so happy to see you again. I'm sure she really misses you."

"I hope Robert and Nancy can make it for Christmas. I haven't seen William and Julia in so long. I'm sure they've probably grown so much that I wouldn't recognize them." Rachel thought about George and Caleb alone except for each other over the holidays and her heart ached for them.

Caleb saw the look on her face and touched her cheek gently. "Please don't worry about us. We'll be just fine."

After a while they heard the horses' feet and saw the buggy in the distance. The driver stopped the buggy right in front of the Brewer's porch and Caleb helped Rachel with her suitcases. After she was seated in the buggy he helped tuck the blankets around her legs and feet.

"I guess this is good-bye then," he said when he thought that he could put it off no longer.

She nodded silently and blinked back the tears.

"Please take care of yourself and have a very merry Christmas. The time will pass more quickly than you think." He kissed her tenderly on the cheek and she smiled at him.

"Good-bye." At last she had found her voice.

"I wish you and your father a very merry Christmas too."

"Thank you Rachel."

They waved good-bye to each other until the buggy was just a tiny dot on the horizon.


	3. Echoes of the Past

Laurel embraced her daughter tightly and seemed reluctant to let her go. She hadn't seen her since January, when Rachel had returned to Virginia for the second school term, and it was now June.

"Mother, this is my friend Caleb Townsend and his father George." Laurel remembered how Rachel had frequently spoken of Caleb when she had returned home at the end of the fall term in December. She knew that the young man had become very important to Rachel and that Rachel cared deeply for him, so she was not surprised that he had accompanied Rachel when she had come home again.

As Laurel looked into George Townsend's dark brown eyes, her heart almost stopped. She had looked into those eyes before, had looked deeply into them while making love, while conceiving her daughter. Although at the time she had thought that they belonged to someone else, her lawful husband, Jack Sommersby. She suddenly felt too weak to stand.

George saw the look on her face and seemed puzzled, then concerned. "Ma'am, are you all right?" he asked her.

Laurel recovered quickly. "Yes, oh yes." She laughed shakily. "This Tennessee heat just gets to me sometimes." She stepped aside. "Won't you please come in," she said.

Later Rachel took Caleb out in the buggy to introduce him to her friends and show him around the town. George and Laurel sat in the living room drinking coffee.

There was a long silence. "I know you must be related to Horace," Laurel said finally.

"Horace is my brother," George told her. "I have been wondering what happened to him for many years. I expect you know." George suspected that his brother had impregnated and then abandoned Laurel. It would have been so like Horace to have done just that. Most likely after promising her the moon and stars.

Laurel recounted to George how the man whom she believed to be her husband Jack Sommersby had returned to her several years after the War of Northern Aggression had ended. How they had lived together, sharing the same bed and having normal marital relations for months before she found out that he wasn't really her husband.

"So Rachel is Horace's child then?" George already knew the answer before he even asked the question.

"I honestly believed him to be my lawful husband when I...when we..." Laurel stammered.

"It's all right, Laurel," George said softly, putting his hand over hers. "I wasn't questioning your morality. But I had to know for sure."

Both of them were silent for a minute. "How much of this does Rachel know?" George finally asked.

"For all of her life Rachel has believed that her father was Jack Sommersby. I've never told her any differently. It's what he would have wanted," Laurel told him. "He was always so good to Robert and me. He was so much better to Robert than his own father had been. The day he died a part of me died too. A part of me is buried under a tombstone on a hill."

"How did he die?" George asked.

"He was hung for a murder my husband Jack Sommersby had committed. I tried to get him to admit that he wasn't really Jack Sommersby. I would gladly have borne the shame of being labeled a whore to have kept him by my side all these years. But he wouldn't hear of it. He said that without his name he would have nothing to live for. But that's not true. He would have had me and Robert and Rachel." Laurel was almost crying with the memory of it.

So Horace had come to the unfortunate end that George had always feared would be his fate. But at least now he felt a sense of closure.

"To tell you the truth I don't know anything at all about your brother and what his life was like before I met him," Laurel said. "He wouldn't discuss it with me at all. All these years I have wondered what his life was like before, why he wanted to take over my husband's identity."

"Horace was the younger brother and our mother's favorite. I always thought she really spoiled him. He had been sickly as a baby and she was always very overprotective of him as well. Also, he was clever and very skilled at manipulating her and every one else around him. He had a way with people, especially women. He had a natural charm and used it to his full advantage."

"There was an incident where he used the money that was supposed to be for the new school to pay off his gambling debt. A lot of people got angry over that. Then there was an incident involving a woman. Her name was Arrie Ann Keller and she was a barmaid at the saloon where Horace spent a lot of his time. Well, Arrie Ann got pregnant and went around telling everyone that Horace was the father. Horace came to me in a panic. He said that he didn't love Arrie Ann and wasn't ready to be a father. As accustomed as he was to me bailing him out of situations, he asked if I could arrrange for Arrie Ann to have a back-alley 'operation'. I told him he was crazy, that I wouldn't want the woman's life to be risked just to save face for him."

"Much later, after Horace had disappeared, I went to see her and confronted her. She admitted that she had been with a man named Seaborn Wilder as well as with Horace so she didn't know which one of them was the baby's father. But Seaborn was married and his wife had a terrible temper. Arrie Ann was afraid of her."

"I was so angry that she had slandered my brother's name that I wanted to strike her even though she was a woman."

"It was right after Arrie Ann got pregnant that Horace joined the army. I laughed in his face. 'You? In the army? You're afraid of your own shadow. And however handy you are with your fists you've never even handled a gun. I give you a week at best.'"

"I also told him that I was ashamed of the fact that we had come from the same parents and that I wished that it wasn't so. I could tell that really hurt him, although at the time I was so angry that I didn't care. I guess that was the last time I really talked to him before he disappeared."

Laurel was thinking about how happy he had been when he had found out that she was expecting Rachel. He had been so eager for her to be born and had been thrilled when she finally arrived. She remembered the happiness and love in his eyes as he had tenderly held his daughter for the first time. And the love he had shown Robert, who was not even his biological child. That he had been capable of expressing that love to Robert after casually tossing aside Arrie Ann's baby, which he believed to be his own without question, perplexed her. Blood is thicker than water, she had always been told.

As Horace, he had squandered the money entrusted to him for the new school house, yet as her husband Jack he had kept his word about purchasing the burley tobacco seeds. As Horace he had deserted the Confederate army because he had been afraid of death, yet as Jack he had boldly faced death rather than to allow Laurel and Rachel to be dishonored. How had such a radical change of heart been possible? Could remorse for self-serving deeds of the past be assuaged by literally assuming the identity of another person? It seemed to have worked that way for Rachel's father. Laurel concluded that there was a lot about human nature she would never understand. Especially that of the enigmatic man who had shared her life so briefly yet affected it so profoundly.


	4. A Walk in the Country

The sound of the horses' hooves heralded the return of Caleb and Rachel. Laurel hurried to let them in.

Caleb was grinning, and Rachel was brimming over with excitement. She held up her hand for Laurel to see. The diamond ring Caleb had placed on her finger was beautiful. All was quiet for a minute. Then Laurel hugged her daughter and said, "Oh honey, I am so happy for you."

George winked at his son. "I suspected you had something like this in mind and that was why you wanted to be alone with her," he said cheerfully.

"I finally got up the nerve to ask her," Caleb confessed.

"I'm so happy and excited I don't know what to do!" Rachel exclaimed. She kept looking at the ring on her finger and beaming.

"Well, come have a seat and tell me all about it, honey," Laurel said with a smile.

Since having his suspicions about Rachel confirmed, George couldn't stop wondering what she had been like as a baby and as a young girl. He knew that Laurel had done her best to be both mother and father to the girl and had succeeded admirably, but there must have been some empty spaces that only the love of a father could have filled. He thought of his mother and how much she would have loved Rachel. How much her death, and that of her husband, had been hastened by stress related to worry about Horace and his misadventures, God only knew. She had never had a daughter and had longed to have a granddaughter someday. George himself would have dearly loved to have had a daughter, but the birth of Caleb had nearly killed Lydia, and she was never able to bear any more children after him. George wouldn't have wanted her to have to go through that again anyway. And all this time he had had a niece whom he had had no idea even existed. He thought about how cruelly ironic life could sometimes be.

That night sleep eluded Laurel. The events of the day just kept repeating themselves in her mind. She prayed,"Oh dear Lord, I thought I was doing the right thing to let her believe that Jack Sommersby was her father. I know it was what he wanted me to do. I had no idea she had an uncle and cousin in Virginia. Everything would have been so different if I had only known that, but I didn't. Please God, forgive me if what I did was wrong. But it's too late now and the damage has already been done. I can't just destroy both her love for the person she thought her father was and her chance for happiness with Caleb. Please tell me what to do." But the heavens seemed silent. Finally Laurel fell into a fitful sleep with disturbing dreams.

The following morning dawned bright and beautiful. It wasn't late enough in the summer for the really hot weather to have set in, but it was warm enough to dress lightly. Laurel had just finished cleaning up from breakfast when she heard a knock on the door.

"Good morning, Laurel. I have some business to take care of at the mercantile and since it's such a beautiful morning I thought that perhaps you would like to walk with me. It's always more interesting when you have someone to talk to."

George Townsend was very smartly dressed, his salt-and-pepper hair was combed back neatly, and his smile was warm and friendly. Laurel's heart skipped a beat. In spite of all the painful memories that had re-surfaced as a result of their conversation the previous day, she felt really happy to see him.

"Certainly," she smiled back. The idea of spending the day alone in the house while Caleb and Rachel took in the sights and visited with friends didn't appeal to her at all.

She fell in step beside him and they set out down the road.

"Well, I can certainly see where your daughter got her good looks from," George remarked pleasantly.

"Thank you." Laurel could feel herself blushing.

"You blush so beautifully too," George said with a laugh, and she joined in.

"So what do you do for a living?" Laurel asked him.

"I'm the editor for the newspaper. Right now I am doing research for a series of articles I plan to write. As you know the War of Northern Aggression ended over twenty years ago. I am visiting various communities to find out how they are faring since the end of the Reconstruction period. Also of course I knew how special Rachel had become to Caleb so I was curious to meet her mother. So I guess you could say I'm combining business with pleasure. And since we are sharing this lovely morning together I thought I could ask you a few questions if you don't mind."

"What would you like to know?"

"Well, perhaps you could tell me about your farm."

"I've been growing burley tobacco for about twenty years now. It grows in a cooler climate than other types do. Rachel's father was the one who first had the idea. He went to Virginia and bought the seeds. Over the years I've had modest success." How much more successful the crop would have been if Rachel's father had lived no one would ever know.

"It must have been quite difficult to be a woman managing a farm alone all these years."

"One of our former slaves, Joseph, has helped me tremendously. I don't know what I would have done without him."

"And Robert?"

"He works in a factory in Ohio. He decided that the farming life wasn't for him." As difficult and unpredictable Laurel's way of life was, she felt that she couldn't blame her son for choosing the industrial life, although she knew that her father would have considered him to be a traitor.

"Raising two children alone must have been quite a challenge as well." George forgot that he was supposed to sound professional.

"Robert was always so self-sufficient. Rachel was a whole different story. She was such a sensitive child. So many times she told me that she wished that she had a father like her friends. I told her that her father was in heaven and that he was looking down on her and would always be with her in her heart. She used to ask me how he could be both in heaven and in her heart at the same time. I told her that if you love someone they are in your heart too even if they are also somewhere else."

"For how long have you been alone?"

"The good Lord took my wife from me eleven years ago. Her name was Lydia. She contracted scarlet fever."

"How terrible for you and Caleb."

"Caleb took it hard. He was only ten years old when she died. For many nights afterward he would awaken at night crying for his mother. As hard as it was I had to try to put aside my own grief and comfort him."

By now they had reached the mercantile. George went inside for a few minutes and then returned and they started the walk home.

George asked, "Is the place where he is buried far from here?"

"I will take you there," Laurel said. She had him up the hill to the spot where the tombstone was. They stood silently for a few minutes. A childhood memory came back to George. He was trudging home from school after having had a difficult day. As he approached the house he saw a small boy with skinned knees, bare feet, and a forlorn look on his smudged face, patiently standing alone waiting for his big brother to get home from school just like he did every day. As soon as he saw George his big brown eyes lit up and a huge grin covered his face. He ran so fast in the direction of his big brother that he stumbled and fell. George grinned himself as he felt his cares for the day instantly swept away. "Let's go look for wiggle worms," he said to Horace, who nodded enthusiastically.

In the presence silence reigned. Then George spoke. "I pray that you have found peace at last, little brother," he said solemnly, gazing at the little white cross.


	5. A Tangled Web

When they returned to the house Laurel asked George if he had given any thought as to what should be done about the situation with Caleb and Rachel. She told him that she herself had been up all night wondering what she should do.

"There's only one thing to do," George said. "I will speak to Caleb and tell him that he must break off the engagement. He can't marry his own cousin."

"Please don't do that," Laurel pleaded. "Didn't you see how happy Rachel was today? It would crush her to lose Caleb."

"She wouldn't have to lose him at all," George said. "They would still love one another as cousins. And both of them are young and would quickly find other mates."

Laurel was still shaking her head. "She wouldn't be able to love him the way she wants to love him." Laurel herself had known true love once. It had been cruelly snatched away from her way too soon, but she would never forget how sweet and tender it had been, and she couldn't bear the thought of it being snatched from her daughter has it had been from her, regardless of the circumstances.

"I have always been honest with my son. He has the right to know that Rachel is his cousin, the daughter of his Uncle Horace."

"Please, please don't tell Caleb," Laurel begged. "He would never be able to keep a secret like that from Rachel. And for her to find out would destroy her."

"Maybe Rachel is stronger than you think she is," George said.

"The man I loved died to protect her from the shame of illegitimacy. With Jack Sommersby as her lawful father she could hold her head up and no one could call her a bastard. Please don't take that away from her."

She looked at George imploringly. "Please, I beg you, promise me you won't tell Caleb."

George could see that he wasn't going to win. "All right, Laurel. I promise."

Afterwards Laurel concluded that the fault was really her own. If she had never asked George if he was related to Horace, no one would have been the wiser, and Caleb and Rachel's wedding could have gone right along as planned. Why, oh why had she had to go and ask a question that would mess everything up? she asked herself.

Deep inside she knew the answer. It was because she knew that she never would have been able to let the stranger with the hauntingly familiar dark brown eyes just walk right back out of her life after this temporary summer visit was over. Not after all the long years of loneliness and heartbreak. She just couldn't.

The next day Caleb was just about to head out the door to visit Rachel when George called to him. "Son, I would like to talk to you for a few minutes."

"Sure, father."

"Caleb, are you sure that you are ready for this step? Both of you are still very young and have plenty of time to think about marriage later on when you are more settled."

"Father, my mind is made up. I love Rachel and she is the woman that I want to spend the rest of my life with."

"Caleb, I would like to ask you a hypothetical question. What if there were something important about Rachel that you didn't know? For instance, what if you found out that Rachel is an illegitimate child?

"But that's not true. Rachel's parents had been married a long time when she was born. You know that her brother Robert is a few years older than her, and they were already married before he was born."

"But what if it turned out that Robert's father wasn't Rachel's father? What if Rachel's father was somebody else?"

"That's crazy! Rachel's mother would have never done anything like that!" Caleb was quite upset.

"Calm down, please, Caleb. I know that she wouldn't have. I was only speaking hypothetically."

"Father, I'm not that good at hypothetical situations, but I would still love Rachel no matter who her father was. Even if he were Ulysses S. Grant himself. It wouldn't be Rachel's fault, would it? She can't help what her parents did!"

"Well, suppose it turned out that Rachel were really your cousin?"

"But you told me that Uncle Horace was never married." Caleb looked totally perplexed.

"That's correct, he wasn't. And as I told you it was only a hypothetical question."

"And as I told you, it doesn't matter to me who her father was. I love Rachel, and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. Nothing in the world is going to change that."

Caleb was deeply troubled. He had meant to show no disrespect to his father, and sincerely hoped that it hadn't appeared that way to the older man. But his father's preposterous suggestions about illegitimacy and kinship had unnerved him. George had seemed so happy about Caleb and Rachel's relationship before, had always seemed to like Rachel so well and to be genuinely happy for his son. Caleb just couldn't understand how this seeming change of heart could have happened so suddenly and unexpectedly. He didn't think it was possible that his father knew more about Rachel than he himself did. He hoped that it was only a reluctance on the part of his father to see his only child grown up, married and living on his own. If so he certainly hoped that the hesitation would be temporary.

George just couldn't understand how a woman he had just met had been able to influence him to withhold the truth from his son for the first time in his life. He had always believed that Caleb had a right to know about anything that affected him. Yet now he had encountered a woman who felt obligated to shelter her daughter from the truth, and already he seemed to find himself adopting her ways. As badly as he had wanted to know what had become of Horace, he wasn't sure at all that it was worth getting caught up in a web of deception and fear of the truth.

The busy summer days flew by quickly. George had the opportunity to meet and interview the mayor of the town, as well as several other prominent citizens. Thanks to Laurel's strong community ties many doors were opened for him, and he appreciated it very much.

There was also plenty of time for long walks in the country, buggy rides, or just quiet conversation on the front porch while drinking iced tea or lemonade. Something was happening to Laurel. For the first time in longer than she could remember she found herself smiling again, laughing again, feeling emotions she hadn't felt in so long that she had forgotten that she had them.

For George it was fascinating to talk to this woman who had seen a softer, more compassionate side of his brother than he himself had seen. It made the impossibility of an eventual reconciliation with Horace even more heart wrenching.

The foremost thought in both their minds, of course, was the upcoming nuptials of their children. George still felt that it was morally wrong for two people so closely biologically related to get married regardless of the circumstances.

"It's not as if it hasn't been done before," Laurel said. She had heard of the ignorant, coarse hill dwellers who bred indiscriminately, sometimes mating even with their own siblings.

"But do we want to be associated with those types of people?" George asked.

"Rachel's last name is Sommersby. She is the daughter of my late husband Jack Sommersby by law if not in fact. So no one will ever know her true relationship to Caleb."

"But we will know."

Laurel was silent for a moment. Then she said, "The question seems to me to be, can we suspend our own moral beliefs for the sake of our childrens' happiness?"

"Did you suspend yours twenty years ago when you decided to raise Rachel in a web of secrets and lies?"

"I have never lied to Rachel. In her father's heart he was Jack Sommersby. In my heart he was Jack Sommersby."

"He's still manipulating you from beyond the grave even after twenty years," George said coldly.

"He wouldn't do that! He loved me!"

"I knew him for his entire life, Laurel. You only knew him for the last few months of it."

"You knew the man he had been before."

"He was still the same man he had always been, Rachel. I don't care what story he told you about being Jack Sommersby in his heart. There's no such thing as one person becoming another person in his heart. That's the craziest idea I've ever heard, and if you believe that then you must be crazy too."

She raised her arm to strike him across the face. Just as quickly he raised his own arm to deflect the blow. He took her hand in his own and gently lowered it.

"Get out of my house!" Laurel said furiously. In his eyes there was a beseeching look, a longing. She had seen that look once before, twenty years ago. The last time she had ordered a man out of her house.

For one terrible moment she feared that he would refuse to leave. But in the end he did. Still with that look in his eyes, the look that had haunted her for twenty years.

As George walked across the field on the way back to the inn, he saw Orin Meacham approaching him.

"I know who you are, _Townsend_." He spat out the name as if it were a piece of putrid meat.

What does this fellow do, listen through walls? George asked himself.

"If your boy married Laurel's bastard girl it will be an abomination before God. Their children will be deformed. Do you want to have a grandchild with three heads?"

"Why don't you just crawl back under that rock you came out from under, you piece of dirt?" George said through clenched teeth.

Orin just gave him a hateful look and hobbled away. George continued on his way to meet Caleb at the inn.


	6. Orin's Revenge

Rachel had returned to the field to look for her hat. She knew that it must have fallen off her head while she had been working in the field that day but she couldn't imagine where she could have lost it. It was nearly dusk so visibility wasn't that great. She hoped that she could find it soon because she knew that the next day would be another scorcher so she would need it.

"Well, aren't you going to say hello?" Startled, Rachel looked around to see who had just spoken. She saw the figure of Orin Meacham reeling toward her. Suddenly her spine felt like jelly. She looked around. No one else was anywhere in sight. As Orin drew closer she could smell the alcohol on his breath.

"You're just as pretty as your mama," Orin said. "Your mama would never let me anywhere near her. She wouldn't let me touch her like this." He pawed her breast. "Or this." He pushed his face into hers and tried to force his tongue into her mouth. Then he grabbed her arm in a cast iron grip.

"But you're different. I know you are." He tried to pull her down. "Come lie with me. Let me show you what a real man is like."

The frightened girl had found her voice at last. "No! Get away from me! Leave me alone!"

Orin laughed cruelly. "Come on Rachel, I know you want it. You're a slut just like your mama."

"Don't you dare call my mama a slut!" Anger temporarily replaced fear as she struggled once again to free herself.

Suddenly the man's body went flying from the force of the blow he had just received from the butt end of the rifle which George Townsend had just slammed into his temple. Rachel had been so frightened and George's approach so fast that she didn't even realize he was there until that instant. Orin lay unconscious on the ground. George kicked him in the face several times, and a couple of times in the crotch while Rachel wasn't looking. The man would live, but he would certainly have a terrible headache when he came to. He might also be missing a few teeth, and urination would probably be painful for him for awhile.

"Are you all right, Rachel?"

"He didn't really hurt me. He just scared me really bad," Rachel said shakily.

"Thank God." George put his arms around his niece and held her tightly, as if she were much smaller and had just awakened from a nightmare. For the very first time in her life Rachel knew what it must feel like to have a father.

At that moment George wanted more badly than ever to tell her who he really was, who she herself really was.

"Oh Rachel, I should have been here for you all along. Ever since they took your father away from you. Please forgive me. I had no idea you even existed."

Rachel wondered what in the world he was talking about.

Since the night of their quarrel there had been an uneasy peace between George and Laurel. For the sake of Caleb and Rachel they were cordial to one another but the former emotional closeness they had shared seemed to be missing.

On this particular evening George had stopped by Laurel's house to return a borrowed item. At least that was the excuse he gave Laurel. But there was a more important reason, an overpowering feeling he had been unable to shake off for the entire day, a strong sense that Laurel's house was where he needed to be that particular evening. It was something he couldn't explain, couldn't possibly tell Laurel about because she would think that he was crazy.

Laurel had heard Rachel's screams and, thinking that she must have seen a rattlesnake or moccasin, took Jack Sommersby's gun from it's box. "I'll go," George said quietly, taking the gun from her hands before she could protest.

When George saw what was really happening, fury surged through his veins like molten lava. The urge to shoot Orin dead was overpowering, but remembering the hill with the tombstone, he realized that he couldn't. Orin Meacham had lived in this town his entire life and had many loyal supporters even if they couldn't really be called friends. George knew no one here except Laurel and Rachel. This town was not going to claim both Townsend brothers. Of that George was determined.

"What in the world happened?" Laurel asked when they were back in the house. She took her sobbing daughter into her arms and held her like she would never let her go.

George explained what had just happened. Laurel's face turned white.

"Oh George, what if you hadn't been there?" She trembled with fear at the thought of what had almost happened to Rachel.

"Well, there's no reason to dwell on that now, is there," George said. "It's all over now. It's all over and Rachel will be just fine."

"I don't know how to thank you for saving her," Laurel said.

"I only did what any decent man would have done under the circumstances," George replied. Then he said more softly, "Laurel, I will always be here for you and Rachel if you will let me." He turned to head back toward the inn, then changed his mind. "If it would make you feel any safer, I wouldn't mind staying in your guest bedroom just for tonight," he said.

Laurel realized that that might not be the best of ideas, but something inside her refused to let her turn down the offer.

After tossing and turning for several hours, Laurel gave up trying to get to sleep and just lay in the dark staring up at the ceiling. She couldn't stop thinking about what had almost happened to Rachel and what George had done for her. Almost as if they a had a mind of their own, her feet swung out of bed and crept down the hallway. The door to the guest bedroom was only partially closed. She opened it far enough to enter and silently made her way to the bed where George was also lying awake. She touched his arm. "Laurel," he said. "I couldn't sleep," she told him. "I can't believe that only a few nights ago I tried to hit you...ordered you out of my house..." she sobbed.

He put his arms around her and she snuggled close against him. He held her and patted her on the back for a long time while she rested her head on his shoulder. Then he said,"It must have been such a shock for you to find out that he had a brother. Just as it was a shock for me to find out he had a daughter."

"I am just so, so sorry," she said through her sobs. "So sorry that things have to be the way they are."

"It's not your fault, Laurel. I know that it's only because you love Rachel so much and want to protect her." Rachel, who had never know the love of a father nor of an uncle.

"You love her too, George."

"Of course I do. Just like I loved him, whether he believed that or not. He was my brother. My own flesh and blood. I wouldn't have stopped loving him no matter what he had done. And I know you loved him too."

"Oh God, if you only knew how much. I only wish you could have known him after he became Jack."

"I wish that too. More than you will ever know." He began to kiss her very gently, first on the forehead, then all over her face, then on her mouth, then deeply and urgently. Laurel could feel him becoming aroused and moved quickly away.

"I think you'd better go back to your own room before we end up doing something we will both regret later," George said hoarsely.

Laurel felt terrible. "I'm so sorry, George. That was so wrong of me to come in here and get you into that condition."

"There's nothing to apologize for, Laurel," George said. "You were so badly shaken by what almost happened to Rachel that it's no surprise. If I were a different kind of man I could have very easily taken advantage of that fact."

"Good night then," Laurel said, hurrying out of the room before she could change her mind and remain on the bed with him. To do that took every ounce of will power she possessed, but she was determined never to do anything to deserve the label of whore. Not after the sacrifice he had made for her and Rachel.

The following morning Caleb arrived early to pick Rachel up and to find out what had kept his father the previous night. When he heard what had happened, he swore that he would give Orin Meacham a beating that he would never forget. George and Laurel talked him out of it. Orin was larger and more muscular than Caleb, and chances were that nothing would be seen of Orin for a long time after the injuries George had given him. After a while Caleb and Rachel left in the buggy. George had business to take care of in town so he asked Laurel if she would be all right. "I'll be fine," she told him. He cupped her chin in his hand and his eyes had that look of longing in them again for a while before he left. Laurel knew that she would think of little else all day.

"Mama, who is Mr. Townsend, really?" It was several days later and Rachel was helping her mother clean up after supper. She told Laurel the things that George had said to her the night Orin had attacked her.

Laurel frowned deeply and her lips tightened into a thin line. She scrubbed the pan she was holding as if she wanted to scrub a hole right through it, and it took her a long time to respond. Finally she said slowly, Mr. Townsend and your father were good friends for a long time. They were as close as brothers." Saying that made her feel slightly better about the lie she was now telling her daughter. "They promised each other that each one would look out for the other's family if anything happened to him. But then the war happened and they lost contact with each other and never saw each other again."

Rachel suspected that Laurel's story wasn't quite true. If it were, why had George never mentioned ever having known Rachel's father? And when had George ever lived in Tennessee, or Jack Sommersby in Virginia? She debated whether or not to ask George about it, but just the thought of doing so made her stomach feel as if it were tightening up into knots. Memories of Louisa Perkins and the heavy load that innocent girl had carried on her shoulders for so many years came unbidden to Rachel and she tried desperately to squash them. She decided to never again ask Laurel a question on the subject. For one thing she realized that her mother would never tell her the complete truth about it. For another she knew that deep down inside she really and truly didn't want to know.


	7. Full Circle

The day before Caleb and Rachel planned to marry, the group visited the hill with the tombstone on it for the last time. "Good-bye, father," Rachel said, placing a fresh bouquet of flowers beside the tombstone. "My new home is in Virginia. You will always live on in our hearts. We will never forget you."

Caleb thought that Jack Sommersby must have been an outstanding man to have produced such an extraordinary daughter. He had nothing but the highest of regards for both Jack and Laurel.

George and Laurel looked on quietly. They were both thinking what a blessing it was that Rachel looked much more like her mother and brother than like George and Caleb. Caleb had inherited his mother's blue eyes. The two looked no more like each other than any average couple. They would be spared the shame of being associated with the hill folk and their interbreeding ways.

It was a hot, muggy day in late August when the son of George Townsend and the daughter of Jack Sommersby exchanged vows. It was also Rachel's birthday, and she had never looked more beautiful or happier than when standing beside her beloved Caleb. Robert had been unable to leave his factory job for the wedding, and Jack Sommersby had had neither brother nor nephew, so the role of giving Rachel away fell to the former slave Joseph. The elderly man performed his role proudly as indeed he had been almost like a father to the fatherless girl in many ways. Sadly it was the last service poor Joseph was able to provide for the Sommersby family as he died quietly and peacefully in his sleep the following night. Laurel and Rachel mourned for him as they would have for a husband and father, as indeed he himself had mourned for Rachel's father.

George Townsend waited patiently for just the right moment. Today was the day he would present to Rachel a gift that was rightfully hers, that no one but she had any claim to. It was one of the few things that Laurel knew nothing of, not kept from her out of a sense of spite but rather just that George felt that it didn't involve or concern her. It was his mother's brooch.

As he took it from his pocket to give it to Rachel, he told her,"Rachel, this is something that belonged to my mother. I found it among her things after she passed. I know that she would have wanted you to have it. She never had a daughter, and neither did I."

Rachel felt not quite as surprised as she should have, but she was still very flattered that George would entrust her with such a precious gift. "You have one now," she said to him. George didn't trust his voice to speak as he embraced her.

A few moments later, when George could speak again, he said, "Another thing, Rachel. Now that you are my daughter-in-law, you don't have to call me 'Mr. Townsend' any more."

"Would you like for me to call you 'father'?" Rachel asked him.

George pretended to think it over for a moment. Then he suggested, "Why don't you just call me 'Uncle George'?"

"What a great idea! I never had an uncle before." Laurel's only brother had died in infancy.

"You have one now," George told her. He knew that it was the closest he would ever come to telling her what his true relationship to her was, and it would have to be enough.

George and Laurel watched silently as the happy young couple rode away. After a while George turned to Laurel and asked, "So what will you do now?"

She considered the question for a moment. "I suppose I will try to keep the farm going for as long as I can. When I'm too old I guess I will sell it and move in with Robert and his family." Laurel had never been in the habit of thinking into the distant future. Just to keep everything going as it should, to make sure that the crops were sown and harvested, that Robert and Rachel were provided for, had taken every ounce of strength she had been able to muster.

"Come with me to Virginia, Laurel. There's nothing left for you here now but loneliness and painful memories. In Virginia your livelihood wouldn't depend on weather conditions or pest control. Life would be so much easier. All you would have to worry about would be keeping the house up, preparing meals, washing clothes. Things you are already doing anyway, on top of all your other responsibilities."

"I know no one in Virginia. Where would I live?"

"With me of course, you silly girl!" George laughed.

"I could never live in the same house with a man I wasn't married to," Laurel said.

"That problem is easily solved." George's eyes were twinkling.

Laurel's heart pounded so hard in her chest she thought it might jump right out. "Do you mean - ?"

"Surely you don't expect me to get down on one knee at my age."

Finally Laurel smiled. "All right, George. I'll marry you," she said.

The wedding of George and Laurel was a much quieter affair than that of Caleb and Rachel had been. Just a justice of the peace and the two required witnesses. Laurel would always remember it as one of the happiest days of her life. The day she was finally able to claim the 'Townsend' name as her own at long last, this time with no secrecy or shame attached.

They would stay at the same inn George and Caleb had stayed in temporarily until Laurel had packed everything she planned to take to Virginia with her and sold, given away, or disposed of the rest. James the son of the former slave Joseph had bought the house and farm. The neighbors talked about how ironic it was that the son of a former slave now owned the house and land that had belonged to his father's former master. Laurel didn't care what the neighbors said. She remembered how Rachel's father had felt about that and the sacrifices he had made for what he believed in. She considered allowing James to buy the house and land to be her way of showing honor to him and his values one last time. She knew how happy he would have been.

After the wedding they returned to the inn and made love. Afterward Laurel cried with happiness. For her it was like an old wound that had finally healed leaving only the faintest of scars. How happy she was that she had resisted temptation that awful night Rachel had been attacked in the field and George had stayed in the spare bedroom. George held her and caressed her and murmured tenderly and lovingly to her. Laurel looked into his eyes and now she saw the same eyes but they were looking down on her from the gallows. Silently she answered the unspoken plea in them. Yes, she would take good care of Rachel. Yes, Rachel would be raised as the daughter of Jack Sommersby. A name she could be proud of. She watched as the noose was placed around his neck. She heard the trap door open and turned her eyes away because after that she couldn't watch any more, couldn't bear to see him just hanging there, to see those eyes so full of life only moments before now staring blindly at nothing at all.

She tried her best to block out the jeers of the crowd as she turned to go back home to her children. Her breasts were so heavy and swollen. Rachel must be starving. How she longed to hold that warm, soft, precious little bundle of life again, to feel those lips at her breast and to touch that soft, downy hair. She was all that Laurel had left of him now.

Did he know how much she needed him and would miss him? Was that why he had sent his brother to her after all these years? Did miracles really exist? Laurel had never been sure before, but now she was convinced that they did.

"You don't know how many times I have dreamed of holding you like this." George's words brought her back to the present.

She smiled. "Is it as good as you imagined?"

"So much better than that, my darling." He chuckled.

"I wish that I could just lie here like this forever with you."

"We can lie like this just as long as we want. We're in no hurry. Take a nap if you want to. I think I will."

A few minutes later she heard him snoring. A little while later she fell asleep too, knowing that the memories of her final few days in Vine Hill, Tennessee, the town she had lived in for her entire life up until now, would be sweet ones.


	8. January 1, 1900

The last night of the nineteenth century was cold and chilly. Caleb had to keep piling logs on the fire as the night wore on. Inside the house the mood was warm and cheerful. George and Laurel were both completely white-haired by now, and they moved around the house more slowly than before, but they still loved each other very much and greatly enjoyed each other's company in their golden years.

Caleb and Rachel were also very happy together. Caleb, whose hair was now getting thinner on the sides, had taken over the running of the newspaper entirely since his father had retired, and Rachel enjoyed being a mother to their two children. John Robert Townsend was a sensitive and precocious boy who earned high marks in school and yes, he did have a keen interest in Greek mythology. "I never realized that that kind of thing could be inherited," Laurel said laughingly.

Jack's sister Lydia was the family's little darling. Everyone was eager to shower her with love and affection, especially her grandfather. It was as if George were trying to make up for all the love he would have shown to Rachel when she had been that age if he had been able to. Both children were completely normal and healthy, which Laurel considered to be another miracle.

After Lydia's birth, Caleb innocently remarked that she was the first girl born into the Townsend family in three generations. George and Laurel exchanged a silent but meaningful glance. Rachel noticed this interaction and the now-familiar feeling of tightness in her lower abdomen returned once again. "Jack will be so happy," she said, eager to change the subject.

"I think we'd better let Rachel get some rest now,' Caleb said, and his wife smiled gratefully at him.

Robert and Nancy and the Sommersby children were visiting for the holidays this year. William and Julia were nearly grown now. William planned to follow in his father's footsteps at the factory, and Julia wanted to be a schoolteacher like her Aunt Rachel before her. Rachel very much enjoyed helping her young niece with her preparations for her career. She saw her niece and nephew so infrequently that she was always amazed at how much they had grown and changed every time she saw them again.

Young Jack had finally lost his battle to stay awake with his older cousins to see the new century, and he was asleep on the sofa with his head in his grandmother's lap. After many protests Lydia had been allowed to stay awake past her normal bedtime, only to fall asleep in George's arms and be taken to her bedroom and tucked in by him.

To help everyone else to stay awake until the clock chimed in the new century, George had gotten out some old family photos and was showing them around to the others. "Rachel, did I ever show you this photo of my brother Horace? It was taken right after he joined the army."

Rachel studied the photo of Horace Townsend in his Confederate uniform for a long time, trying to figure out why it looked so very familiar to her. Then she remembered the photo of her father Jack Sommersby in his own Confederate uniform and in her mind something clicked like all the pieces of a puzzle coming together at one time to form one unified whole. She understood the deep pain her mother had felt over all these years, the pain of loneliness and grief compounded by another pain that was more vague but which Rachel saw clearly now. She understood why her mother was so happy with George without anyone having to say a word.

The details no longer mattered because she knew that her father had loved her and had given her everything he had to give, up to and including the ultimate sacrifice. In her heart she felt peace and acceptance. Not all questions had to have an answer and some mysteries were meant to remain just that.

Now the clock was striking midnight. Rachel hugged George and kissed his cheek. She finally knew why she was so dear to him, and he to her, and that it would always be that way. "Happy New Year, Uncle George, and thank you so much for sharing that photo with me." "Happy New Year, dearest Rachel," he said with a broad smile.


End file.
